When I started thinking about I LOVE ROBOTS, I wanted to create a project to work with those kids who stick up for some reason, can be their passion for a certain thing or the way they do things. I wanted to work with kids that were interested enough in something. So we went out to the schools and said we were looking for 16 kids between 11-14 years old interested in building ROBOTS!!
The kids would register freely, we didn’t handpick anyone. As unfortunately there are many sterotypes about technology being a “man thing” we really put an extra effort in motivating girs to register. We got 16 kids from different schools in Malmö. We arranged a 4-day workshop with 1Scale1 . There, they learned to program simple robots that reacted to certain stimulations like change of color or surface. They also gave form to these robots with paint and different material.
In order to inspire children and show them how a “hobby” can become something more, we invited Nerea de la Riva & Ivan Gallego Bravo from Complubot a spanish organization that works with robotics and children. They are 18 and 16 years old and they have been working many years developing Robots that play football. They won the first place in the Robocup 2010 in Shanghai.
We also organized a parallel workshop called “Hard becomes soft” which it was open for older people who wanted to learn to do knitted robots. The result from both workshops was presented in an exhibition opened under 24 -28 November 2010.
Video: Courtesy of David Sjunnesson 1Scale1